


Prime

by seaofteeth



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Ace/aro Levi, Eren has MS, Ereri Secret Santa 2015, Genderfluid Eren, Make Up, Multiple Sclerosis, Other, Queerplatonic relationship, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-08 23:46:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5517605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seaofteeth/pseuds/seaofteeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Levi does Eren's make up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prime

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Diana_sun_kittykat_95](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Diana_sun_kittykat_95/gifts).



> Happy holidays, hoja-en-blanco! I was really stoked on your prompt and how versatile it was so I hope you like it :')
> 
> Also, just as a sidenote to everyone: I'm arospec/ace and so how Levi feels about love is basically modeled after how I feel about it, but I just wanted to note that aromanticism is a spectrum and not everyone feels the same way. Some aro folk don't want to be in a relationship, some do, some are romance-repulsed, some are not, etc. I just feel like a lot of people who aren't on on the aromantic spectrum (and ace spectrum, for that matter) have a really black/white view of it and it doesn't work like that. That's why it's a spectrum! :^)

Levi had thought he had known what love was before he met Eren, had always defined the intangible notion by something he himself had never experienced. It’d been a definition he’d concocted from years of overheard conversations and box office smashes: kisses in the rain, butterflies and heart palpitations. Hange had once told him that being in love was feeling like you might puke any second -- “but in a nice way.”

Levi is thankful that he’s never experienced this kind of love, and he doesn’t think he ever will.

But he loves Eren. Not like the couples featured in movie posters -- bodies taut with desire, eyes dark with lust. Levi loves Eren like he loves satin sheets on Sunday mornings, the warm wind in his hair just before a storm. Soft and safe, embedded deeply within his ribcage. There is nothing he wouldn’t do for him (or her, or them, or zir, depending on the day.)

That being said, makeup and its application is not really Levi’s forte.

They’ve been together for over a year now and he’s watched Eren do his makeup hundreds of times, enthralled by how someone already so beautiful can transform themselves into a different kind of beautiful entirely -- not more, not less, just different. Eren has told him before that to him, it’s a cathartic ritual; the tubes and compacts laid out in front of him, so foreign to Levi, make Eren feel like a shapeshifter, like he can be anything. A boy or a girl, or neither, or both. Endless possibilities, all dependent on his whim.

“Beauty is terror,”* Eren once quoted with a feral grin, eyes rimmed with black and gold.

But today there’s a crease in Eren’s brow and Levi finds that he wants to smooth it out with his lips, wants to take his shaking hands into his own and kiss each of his trembling knuckles. He watches Eren at his vanity, fingers twitching every time he tries to pick up an inconspicuous looking tube. On his third try, the tube slips from his fingers and onto the floor and Eren huffs in annoyance, gritting his teeth.

His partner has days like this in varying frequency. Some days are harder than others, and some days aren’t hard at all. There are days that Eren can’t get out of bed and there are days that Levi wakes up to the smell of bacon wafting from the kitchen, his partner’s piss-poor singing echoing off the walls of their small apartment.

And then there are days like today, when Eren has tremors he can’t control.

“Multiple sclerosis,” Eren had said when they’d first met, right after he’d told Levi his preferred pronouns for the day. “But if you think that means I need a babysitter, I’ll punt you into oncoming traffic.”

Levi kneels down to pick it up the tube, making eye contact with Eren as he does so. His gaze is unwavering; it’s important to both of them that Eren knows that he’s not helping because he thinks Eren is incapable -- he’s helping because he wants to. His eyes skim over the label on the tube and he hasn’t the faintest idea what “eye primer” is, or why one would need it. A heavy sigh draws his attention back upwards.

“Well, I guess I’m going natural today,” Eren says. His smile is faint and forced, his hands curling into loose fists.

Levi sets the eye primer on the vanity, moving so that he can stand behind Eren and wrap his arms around his broad shoulders. He kisses the top of Eren’s hair, which smells of honey and sunlight. It’s his favorite smell.

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Mm.” Eren tilts his head upwards so that the next kiss inadvertently lands on his forehead instead. His smile is still faint, but no longer forced. “Not unless you’ve been secretly moonlighting at the MAC counter.”

“No, unfortunately not,” Levi smiles softly, gently scratching his fingers through Eren’s hair the way he likes. There’s an intimacy in the act that Levi cherishes, particularly in the way Eren’s shoulders seem to relax, if only slightly.

“I can try though.”

Eren blinks up at him. “Really?”

“Yeah. I mean if you can do it, how hard can it be?” Levi says with a coy half-smile, meeting Eren’s gaze in the mirror. Though it doesn’t show on his face, he’s actually terrified about being trusted with such a huge responsibility. He can barely draw a straight line on paper and he’s watched Eren apply eyeliner before, his motions smooth and precise as he paints sharp angles that wing out from the outer corners of his eyes. But his anxiety is somewhat quelled when a quiet laugh emerges from the depths of Eren’s throat -- the first time he’s heard it all morning -- and he finds himself brimming with newfound resolve.

Levi has seen and done a lot of things in his life, many of which he isn’t proud of but some of it he is: the number of triathlons he’s run, promotions he’s gotten, the fact that thus far he’s managed not to screw up the best committed relationship he’s ever been in. The point is he can probably put some lipstick on his partner without fucking it up too badly.

Probably.

 

* * *

 

“Just squeeze a little on your finger tip -- no, no, your ring finger -- and just like, rub it into my eyelids,” Eren explains, closing his eyes. Levi is holding the tube of eye primer like one might hold a vial of toxic chemicals, his mouth twisted into a grimace. Fingers don’t belong near eyes, especially someone _else’s_  eyes, but it’s too late for him to back out now.

He squeezes a pea-sized amount of the clear substance onto the pad of his ring finger, rubbing it against his thumb a few times before finally pressing the substance to Eren’s eyelid.

“This doesn’t hurt?”

“No. You’re very gentle.”

Levi feels his cheeks warm, though he can’t fathom why. Maybe it’s because Eren looks cute like this -- chin tilted up, his obscenely long eyelashes fanning over his cheeks. It should be illegal, looking this cute. He kind of wants to kiss him but refrains, smoothing the primer onto his eyelids with the same kind of care one might employ to assemble a ship in a bottle.

Eren blinks a few times when he pulls away, smiling. His hands occasionally twitch in his lap, but other than that, he’s perfectly still.

“Good. Now choose an eyeshadow.”

“You want _me_ to choose?” Levi balks.

When Eren doesn’t correct him, he begins rummaging around in the drawer that holds his partner’s ridiculous amount of eye shadow. Or at least, he thinks it’s all eye shadow. The options are overwhelming but he eventually chooses a bronze-tinged green that he thinks he’s seen Eren wear before. He remembers how the shade made his eyes look like galaxies far, far from here.

“Okay, now take that flat brush over there --”

“I can’t just use my finger again?”

“I mean, technically you can but it’s easier with a brush, trust me. And more hygienic. I know how much you love hygiene.” Eren grins impishly at him.

“I tell you not to track mud into the house _one_ time…” Levi mutters under his breath. He swipes the brush in the powder a couple times before spreading it over Eren’s primed eyelids, blanching when green dust manages to land on Eren’s cheek as well.

Easier his ass.

Despite the fact his eyes are closed, Eren is snickering.

“It’s called fall out. Don’t worry about it, I always wipe it off later.”

But Levi is worried about it. As it stands, Eren looks like some kind of martian -- and not the cool, edgy kind of galactic look that Eren occasionally harnesses. This is more like a student film project alien, blotchy and uneven. He doesn’t know how Eren makes this look so easy.

“I’m...so sorry,” Levi says, looking at the disaster he has created on Eren’s face. Eren turns his head to look in the mirror but Levi stops him by quickly placing a palm to his cheek, effectively halting the action.

“That bad, huh?” Eren looks like he’s trying his hardest not to look at his reflection, his shoulders shaking slightly despite his best efforts to keep from laughing. “Sometimes it helps if you use a fluffier brush to blend it out more.”

With pursed lips, Levi picks up a dome-shaped brush and flicks it against his partner’s eyelids in short, sharp strokes like he has seen Eren do so many times before. The result isn’t great, but he supposes it’s an improvement. The color is a lot fainter, but at least it’s not blotchy.

“Next is eyeliner,” Eren pipes up.

“I don’t know how I feel about jabbing a pencil that close to your eye.”

“Okay well you don’t _jab_  it for one,” Eren laughs as Levi plucks a black pencil from the drawer. “And pencil is a lot easier than liquid. I’m letting you off easy.”

Levi pops off the cap and tucks it onto the other end of the pencil before gently tugging Eren’s eyelid taut like he’s seen his partner do so many times before. Swallowing, he presses the pencil tip to the corner of Eren’s eye and drags it outward, holding his breath to keep his hand steady. He exhales once he’s finished with both eyes and Eren blinks a few times, smiling up at him.

“Thanks for offering to do this,” he says quietly. “I know it’s kind of out of your comfort zone.”

Levi’s chest swells with just how much he loves the person in front of him. Maybe it wasn’t like the love one sees on the silver screen, the kind that Hollywood expects everyone to experience, but that doesn’t stop him from feeling occasionally overwhelmed by how much Eren makes him _feel_.

“Of course,” he murmurs, thumbing away a stray smudge of black. Eren agrees to forgo mascara -- it’s not like he really needs it anyway -- and he hands Levi a tube that says “face primer” after Levi finishes dusting all the fall out off of his face.

“ _Another_ primer? Do you even need this?” Levi asks, scrunching his nose at the bottle. “It looks just like clear lotion.”

“Yes, Levi,” Eren replies, giving him a succinct ‘how could you even suggest forgoing such a quintessential part of my makeup routine?’ look. Alright, he’s probably ad-libbing a little -- but he’s known Eren long enough to get the gist of his looks, and this one appears thoroughly unimpressed with his (justified) skepticism.

“It’s to, you know, prime,” Eren explains unhelpfully.

“Very articulate,” Levi says, the corner of his mouth curling upwards.

“I don’t know, it just -- it keeps everything looking smooth and nice. It’s important. Think of it like…” He taps his chin, glancing over at the pile of clean laundry Levi had been preparing to put away. “Underwear. Most people don’t see it, but you still wear it every day.”

“That is a ridiculous analogy.”

“Yeah? And?”

And nothing. Eren has a petulant-looking frown on his face and Levi feels an overwhelming urge to kiss him for the second time since they’d started this whole ordeal. So he does, softly, and Eren pulls away mere seconds later, fixing his partner with a puzzled expression.

“What was that for? You’re not getting out of doing my lipstick you know --”

“Shhh.” Levi’s smile is wicked as he traces the edge of Eren’s bottom lip with the pad of his thumb, leaning back in for another kiss.

“I’m priming them.”

**Author's Note:**

> * “Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it.” ― Donna Tartt, _The Secret History_


End file.
